A blog FOR young women BY young women. Get ready to meet some of the country's most dynamic, motivated and all-around stellar girls. Contributors to the blog for the upcoming year will include past participants of Distinguished Young Women programs across the country who are attending colleges and universities throughout the US. This is a place for young women to join together to learn about one another, laugh together and see what it means to "be distinguished!"

Monday, November 12, 2012

The Power of Being Able to Laugh at Yourself - by Christina

No one is perfect.
Mistakes are inevitably part of life and no matter how good we are at
hiding our flaws, they are still there.
Our quirks and “embarrassing moments” are what make us human. It’s not something to be ashamed of! I’ve learned that I am happier, and that the
people around me are ultimately more entertained, when I can laugh at myself. It is empowering to stand at a crossroads and
be able to choose to give yourself a break and laugh about your human quirks,
rather than be ashamed. Besides, I hope
to someday, a long time from now, be a fun grandmother and I’m going to need to
have some outrageous stories to tell my grandkids. In keeping with this, I’ve decided to share
with you a few of my most stellar personal embarrassing moments. I hope that they will bring you some
laughter, as they did me!

My senior year in high school, I performed the role of Sarah
Brown in Asheville Community Theater’s production of Guys and Dolls. During one
scene, missionary Sarah Brown is in Havana, Cuba and gets into a heated dance
competition with a feisty dancer who is trying to steal her man. In this scene, I was supposed to meet the
other dancer, played by the fabulous Tina Pisano-Foor, at the front of the
stage and have a gracefully choreographed fight, complete with lifts. During one performance, in front of a full
audience and unbeknownst to me, there was one tiny, blue, lethal sequin lying
on the stage. Right at the moment when I
was supposed to fake punch Tina, the smooth tan toe of my character shoe
stepped right on top of that tiny blue sequin.
As I swung at her, my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on
my back. The audience gasped, not sure how
to react. Tina, thinking quickly and
trying to salvage the situation, pretended to be coming over to fight me, but
really attempting to pull me up. However,
because she was even more petite than me, as I grabbed her hand, still
desperately trying to stay in character as the orchestra played on frantically,
I accidentally pulled her down on top of me.
Everyone on the stage was frozen in shock and mild panic at the sight of
the two of us sprawled out on the stage, but the audience seemed enthralled by this
incredibly realistic choreography. We
finally managed to scramble and get ourselves up off of the floor in time to
make the last lift and get carried off stage, doing our very best to stifle the
rolling laughter. Backstage, it was a
long time before we could catch our breath, compose ourselves and stop
cackling. A few days later, I got a
letter from a kid who had been in the audience that night, writing to Sarah
Brown. He told me how much he loved me
and my singing, and then at the very end of the note shared some advice: “Oh, but you really might want to work some
on your crazy dance moves.”

This past year, I auditioned for some of the top Musical
Theatre programs across the country. It
was an extremely extensive, stressful and competitive process and the stakes
and nerves were always very high.
Although the academic application was very important, the audition was
often the basis of whether or not you were accepted to that program. One particular day in January, I auditioned
for my dream school: The University of
Michigan. I’m not exactly a prima
ballerina and was always nervous during the dance auditions. In this particular dance audition, we were
doing the ballet portion in a big rehearsal room, lined with mirrors and ballet
barres. We were each given a number to
stick onto the front of our leotards, a number that would identify us and allow
the dance faculty to take notes about us as we danced. As the soft and classical ballet music played
in the background, we each watched the teacher demonstrate each exercise and
then did our best to complete it as the faculty watched us carefully. It was silent enough to hear a pin drop. But it was not silent enough to hear a number
drop. I was having my best audition yet
when, halfway through a tendu, I looked down and saw the number on my
foot! I frantically stuck it back onto
my leotard and joined back in. A few
exercises later, I looked in the mirror and panicked. I had on the wrong number! Someone else’s number had fallen off too,
landed on my foot and I had mistakenly stuck it on my own leotard! I had to tell them that I had had on the
wrong number for the last two exercises.
In the middle of the silent and intense audition, I managed to muster up
enough courage to get my voice to work, interrupt the whole audition process and
frantically explain what had happened as I located my original number across
the room. It certainly made for a
memorable audition and I’m just thankful that they were able to look past it!

During my junior year at A.C. Reynolds High School, our
football team won an epic game. It was
such a nail-biting final minute and a huge win.
Everyone went crazy and decided to rush the field. I thought to myself, “Christina, you never
live on the edge. (Yes, I do oftentimes
talk to myself). You’re not supposed to
rush the field, but you need to live a little.” So, I rushed the field like a
crazed football fan. Before the game, I
had sung the National Anthem, wearing the same bright green pea coat that I was
now still wearing as I ran onto the field.
With my adrenaline rushing, running alongside all of my friends and
feeling like a legit football fan, I felt pretty great. That is, until I encountered the fence. The first half went well and I pushed myself
up and threw my leg over the tall fence.
But then, something went wrong and I got stuck. I couldn’t get my other leg over. So I was helpless, caught right on top of the
fence so that everyone could recognize me in my bright green coat and laugh as
they watched one of our principals come over and tell me to get off of the
fence. I was practically escorted off of
the field while all of my friends reveled in the middle of the field where they
had made it safely. My embarrassing
streak of rebellion was somewhat humiliating, but more than anything,
hysterical.

There is a lot of pressure these days. Sometimes, our family, teachers or friends
can accidentally put this pressure on us, and sometimes, we put this pressure
on ourselves. In a time when the
standards seem to constantly get higher and higher and the ideal of perfection
more and more unreal, it can be refreshing to just give ourselves a break. We should all try to take a moment to step
back in the face of a potentially embarrassing moment and instead of being hard
on ourselves, choose laughter, forgiveness and joy. I think we will find that we are much
happier.

Christina Maxwell is a college freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan majoring in Musical Theatre. Originally from Asheville , North Carolina, Christina was a participant in the Distinguished Young Women
program and was selected as the Distinguished Young Woman of North Carolina
for 2012 and the Distinguished Young Woman of America for 2012. Learn
more about Christina here!